A Russian should rejoice if Poland, the Baltic Provinces, Finland, Armenia, should be separated, freed from Russia; so with an Englishman in regard to Ireland, India and other possessions; and each should help to do this, because the greater the state, the more wrong and cruel is its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded. Therefore, if we really wish to be what we profess to be, we must not only cease our present desire for the growth of the state, but we must desire its decrease, its weakening, and help this forward with all our might.

The appreciation of the merits of art (of the emotions it conveys) depends upon an understanding of the meaning of life...

In order to understand, observe, deduce, man must first be conscious of himself as alive.

To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed through words, so to convey this so that others may experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art.

I imagine, joking apart, that to know love, one must make mistakes and then correct them.

I did not myself know what I wanted: I feared life, desired to escape from it, yet still hoped something of it.

My piece of bread only belongs to me when I know that everyone else has a share, and that no one starves while I eat.